Dedicating a portion of your garden to meadow-style plants is one of the best ways to support local wildlife. By using a meadow seed mix, you can grow a variety of flowers and grasses to emulate the plants found in natural pastures and create rich habitats.
Achieving a perfect wildflower area can be tricky, so it’s worth taking a look at our expert tips for designing a meadow and brush up on the best plants to use before you get started.
How to choose between wild meadow seeds and wildflower seeds
The main difference between wildflower and meadow mixes is the type of seeds included. Meadow packs come with a range of flowers and grasses, while other blends like those found in wildflower seed bombs focus just on flowers.
So, why should you plant a meadow? Well, you’ll be developing habitats for wildlife in the local area, and you can enjoy a blanket of colour throughout the summer.
Do meadow seeds come back every year?
Packs of meadow seed mix can potentially contain grasses, as well as annuals that’ll flower for just one summer, and perennials, which should come back year after year. As some packs have a large proportion of short-lived annuals (particularly if they’re predominantly flower blends), it’s important to check the details on the box before you buy.
See our rundown of the best places to buy seeds online.
Best meadow seed mix packs for a colourful display
Classic meadow mix
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Thompson & Morgan is one of the best brands to browse when you’re in need of a meadow seed mix. The Suffolk-based business has been selling seeds since 1855, so it has over 150 years of expertise behind it.
This pack blends annuals and perennials for a diverse display of different plants. In fact, this box alone contains enough seeds for 12,000 flowers.
Rather than sell the wild meadow seeds as compact ‘bombs’, which you scatter on the ground, Thompson & Morgan has combined them with vermiculite to allow for even distribution.
Johnsons country meadow seeds
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If establishing grasses as well as flowers is important to you, this pack is a safe bet.
Like all the best meadow seed mixes, it tells you exactly what you can expect to grow. You’ll get flowers like birdsfoot trefoil, black knapweed and yarrow, as well as grasses including browntop bent, crested dogstail and Yorkshire fog.
This pack contains enough seeds to cover 40 square metres of ground.
Mini meadow
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This meadow seed mix comes with added ingredients to support the plants as they grow. There’s Super Seaweed, made from sustainably harvested kelp, which contains nutrients, vitamins and amino acids to boost growth. Meanwhile, the added Rootgrow mycorrhizal fungi should support the seedlings in their early days.
In this pack, you’ll get enough wild meadow seeds to cover 10 square metres of ground, and you should see varieties like cornflowers, poppies and oxeye daisies.
Meadow garden seeds
- Buy now from B&Q (£4.00)
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For a simple, affordable meadow seed mix, try this box from B&Q. Thanks to its selection of colourful plants, including sunflowers, daisies and poppies, it should create a vibrant display.
Sow the seeds in April or May and you should enjoy a colourful flower patch between July and September.
Meadowland mixture
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Another great option from Thompson & Morgan, this meadow mix comes with more than 30 different flower varieties, so you should end up with a diverse and visually interesting display.
As with many meadow-style seed kits, the plants will start to bloom over their first couple of years. While you can expect some of the plants to bloom in the first summer, other varieties will take a little longer and should spring into life the following year.
Once established, the plants should grow to heights of between 20cm and 150cm.
British seed mix
- Buy now from Etsy UK (£1.95)
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Etsy is a great place to find wild meadow seeds like this British plant mix. The pack contains fast-growing flowers and supporting grasses, and isn’t bulked out with sand.
Grasses make up roughly half of the plants in this blend, 5% of which will be wheatgrass to help support long stems. Other species include meadow fescue, cocksfoot and timothy.
As for colourful blooms, you’re likely to see corn chamomile, corn marigolds, cornflowers and crimson clover, which each make up about 10% of the mix.
Meadow-style seed mix
- Buy now from Etsy UK (£9.99)
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With its blend of seeds for perennial meadow and garden plants, this pack should create an impressive display. It includes 21 different flower species and eight grass varieties, but you’ll get a 50/50 mix of the two categories.
Once established, this seed mix should create a colourful display of blue lupins, foxgloves, field poppies and zinnias.
If you sow seeds every year, why not invest in a practical and stylish storage tin? We’ve collected our favourite seed boxes, many of which have handy calendar divisions to keep you on track.